Saturday, 28 February 2009

and daunted by the prospect of so much great Art and so little time to view it,

I settled on a plan to visit only one gallery -

that which housed the works of Jean-Baptiste Chardin.

What I hadn't realised was that this was the plan devised by Proust, in an essay,

to quieten the feelings of envy felt by a young man of modest means but expensive tastes.

'After an encounter with Chardin, Proust had high hopes for the spiritual transformation of his sad young man... He would learn that metal and earthenware could also be enchanting, and common crockery as beautiful as precious stones... Proust promised:

" when you walk around a kitchen, you will say to yourself, this is interesting, this is grand, this is beautiful like a Chardin." '

From 'How Proust Can Change Your Life' by Alain de Boton.

John Lane calls this savouring the ordinary.

'The painting Glass of Water and Coffee Pot

says almost everything I'd like to say...about simplicity, probity and calm.'

From 'Timeless Simplicity' by John Lane.

'Proust was demonstrating how happiness and contentment can come from learning a new way of looking at ones surroundings... Proust believed that by studying the everyday objects depicted - " bowls of fruit, jugs, coffee pots, loaves of bread, knives, glasses of wine, slabs of meat " the discontented young man would realise he was already surrounded by beauty.'

From Easy Living by Terence Conran.

I can never look at this painting without thinking how exactly she looks like I feel,

Monday, 23 February 2009

A syndicate of Haarlem florists on hearing that a cobbler at The Hague had succeeded in growing a black tulip, visited him and after some haggling purchased the bulb for fifteen hundred florins. No sooner was it in their possession than they threw it on the ground and trampled it underfoot.

'Idiot!' cried one of them when the astonished cobbler began to protest;

' We have the black tulip too, and chance will never favour you again.

We would have given you ten thousand florins if you had asked for it.'

The wretched cobbler inconsolable at the thought of the wealth which might have been his, took to his bed and promptly expired.